WE definitely need Christian leadership in our country who can also work to alleviate the high levels of poverty and fight corruption which has become a big cancer in both government and the private sector, says Bishop Simon Chihana.

Chihana, the International Fellowship for Christian Churches (IFCC) president, said it was a blessing for Zambians to hear from President Edgar Lungu that those who desire to succeed him in office must be Christians.

President Lungu said Zambians should not entertain those political leaders who were wolves but pretend to be Christian.

President Lungu said Zambians should work hard in infusing Christianity in all political parties so that Parliament in 2021 would be filled with Christians.

“I know that I have been accused of trying to hijack the church and use it to become a politician. No, I was Christian and I am still a Christian,” said President Lungu. “So I cannot use my faith in Christ because of being a politician. Politicians come and go and I will go with my Christ. Those who want to take over from me should come with Christ, so as to convent and continue with the slogan of Zambia being a Christian Nation. Let us use our faith in God and proclaim Jesus among Christians who are the politicians so that they can come and save the people of God with the best.”

And Bishop Chihana emphasized that both in the political sphere and in the pulpit composition, wolves were never short from time immemorial.

He said the only difference was between falling into sin due to temptations and being a hypocritical believer.

“The Bible makes it clear about knowing each other by our fruits and these are virtues of Christianity, to be loving our enemies, not to be vengeful, to show kindness to others, to be truthful in our talk, not to take things which do not belong to us, to be patient with other people and so on,” he said.

“It is such a great blessing for the people of Zambia to hear from the Republican President Mr E. C. Lungu making it very clear that those who are desiring to stand as Republican presidents and possibly remove him from office must be Christians. I personally endorse his words and welcome his challenge as this is what Zambia is all about. By now, we all know that Zambia is a Christian nation, which does not necessarily mean that all the people of Zambia are Christians but rather the biggest percentage of the population of the Zambia acknowledges Christianity as the fundamental religion in Zambia,” Chihana said.

Bishop Chihana said Zambians knew their political leaders both in the ruling and opposition parties together with their religious beliefs and backgrounds.

Bishop Chihana said leadership was about providing direction and not threatening innocent citizens and individuals and not insulting or intimidating those who have a different view or belong to another political party.

The clergyman further urged President Lungu to attach importance to addressing the education sector, medical care as well as poverty just as much as he was doing on road infrastructure.

“What we know for now is that we have some of our political leaders who are also Church leaders as Pastors and we have others who are elders and so forth. The bottom line would be that we definitely need Christian leadership in the political world of our country who also can work to revamp the economy of the nation to alleviate the high levels of poverty and to fight corruption, which has become a big cancer in both the government and the private sector and deal with many social ills of drunkenness, prostitution, thefts, and child abuse,” Chihana said.

Bishop Chihana said being a Christian did not mean that people do not have weaknesses.

He said it was important to be principled in life.